So whenever i would watch movies and see The Badass Female Character fighting in various ways, something about it always bugged me. I just assumed it was internalized misogyny that made me dislike characters like black widow and Tauriel and tried to make myself like them.
Then I was rewatching Mad Max Fury Road the other day and I noticed that nothing bothered me about watching Furiosa fight and I realized the problem wasn’t watching women fight in movies that got on my nerves.
Watching the stereotypical Badass Female Character she always has these effortless moves and a cocky, sexy smirk on her face as everything is easy. Watching Furiosa, she grunted and bared her teeth. Her fighting was hard and it took effort and it hurt like fighting is supposed to. For once her fighting style wasn’t supposed to seduce the audience it was to be effective.
I wasn’t disliking these characters because they were women I was disliking that their fighting was meant to remind me they were women. High heels and shapely outfits and not showing effort or discomfort because it’s more attractive to effortlessly lift a long leather clad leg over your head rather than rugby tackle someone.
It’s the same with the Wonder Woman movie too. Fighting is hard and it takes effort, blocking bombs and bullets with a shield makes her grimace and bare her teeth with the effort it takes. She’s not flip kicking bombs she’s yelling and straining, not because she’s weak or bad at fighting but because that’s what it would be like.
I really hope we’re moving into an era of women having fighting styles designed for realism and not how hot it looks for the men in the audience.
THIS.
The visual framing of women in media, especially female warriors, is something we talk about a lot. For obvious reasons.
And even before I started this blog, it’s gotten to the point when the phrase “Strong Female Character” lost all of its meaning and is used ironically as a synonym to “Fighting F*cktoy”.
Same goes for “weaponized femininity”, which I personally feel never had any real meaning beyond “we need to constantly assert that this character is indeed female and fuckable to cishet men, even when putting herself in mortal danger!”.
We as well hope that more media gets away from those tropes and starts portraying women fighters as just that – people who fight, with no pretense that their precious femininity needs to be preserved at all times. Especially when male characters are treated completely seriously.
~Ozzie